Social Inequality in Adolescents’ Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Skills: An Intersectional Perspective

This paper explores social inequality in adolescents’ social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) skills through the lens of intersectionality. We examine whether adolescents’ SEB skills differ based on parental education, gender, migration background, school track—and the intersections thereof. In two samples of German adolescents (14–20 years; N = 3,162), we fielded the Behavioral, Emotional, and Self-Regulatory Skills Inventory (BESSI), whose 32 skill facets from five domains enable a fine-grained SEB skill assessment. Bivariate analyses and multilevel analyses of individual heterogeneity and discriminatory accuracy (MAIHDA) identified parental education and migration background as key drivers of inequalities in almost all skills, especially in the Innovation domain. Gender and school track generated smaller and less consistent differences, mostly in favor of girls and adolescents attending academic tracks. Intersectional interactions contributed only modestly to SEB skill differences. We conclude that social inequality in SEB is non-negligible and unfolds primarily as additive effects.